THE MALE MAN
by G.E Waldo
Summary: House had hidden his condition for a many years. But what happens when it becomes known at the worst possible time?
1. Chapter 1

**The Male Man**

By GeeLady

Pairing: Established H/W

Rating: NC-17 Adult.

Summary: House had hidden his condition for a many years. But what happens when it becomes known at the worst possible time?

Disclaimer: Not mine...blah, blah, blah - though a fantasy never hurt anyone.

This story is in response to a prompt by AdamtheAnt. Thank you for the excellent idea! I hope the resulting fic' meets with your approval.

AN: I only know as much about Aspergers as I have read and researched. There are several chairs of opinion when it comes to what makes up an "Aspie's" mind; one such opinion suggests that the Aspberger mind is the extreme male spectrum of the human brain, an opinion many Aspies firmly denounce (particularly women with the disorder).

Aspergers has been called the "high functioning autistic". In my story, I have decided that House is a high functioning _Aspie_.

I can only write as I _imagine_ it might be like to view the world through the mind of a man with Aspergers (or to be the friend of the man with Aspergers), therefore some of my renderings may be inaccurate or just plain wrong! All other medical misunderstandings that may arise in this fic' about Aspergers, and autism in general, are mine and mine alone.

**Boy did this story ever bring controversy to my door! I've received both kind, encouraging reviews and others designed to take a strip off my from top to bottom - both types from mostly those with aspergers. Some told me I got it spot on, others said the story was grossly inaccurate and awful. I have a thick skin, so I wasn't so much bothered by the differences as - who do I believe?**

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Since knowing House, since knowing about House's condition, Wilson could recall only a handful of times where things - people and situations - had gotten out of control for his friend. Out of control so he could tell by House's expression, bowed countenance, or that cornered, haunted look that came over his face, that House was close to a break-apart.

Not a break-down. It had nothing to do with depression of the pressures of the job, but House's inability to analyze and cope with a particular set of circumstances within those pressures. Such stresses, in a certain way, hemmed him in, making it impossible for him to process their nature, thereby leaving House powerless to react accordingly, and so innocently conveying the impression to them that he wasn't like them. That he was in fact abnormal, to those who looked on in ignorance.

Now was one such time and Wilson approached the crying mother, the shrill demanding father and the flying, furious hands of doctor Lisa Cuddy, to extract a mentally bombarded House by pulling on his arm and leading him to safety. As a parting excuse, Wilson offered a few cursory words. "I'm sorry to interrupt everyone, but this is more important. Consult." With some satisfaction, Wilson imagined Cuddy's outraged expression as he dragged away the one upon who she had been venting her wrath for the last five minutes.

Wilson pulled House by the sleeve into the calm solitude of an empty space. Exam room, vacant office, broom closet - it didn't matter. "House?"

House stared back mutely at his friend as though, instead of English, Wilson had just spoken Swahili.

Wilson placed a warm, worried palm against the left side of House's face. Scratchy cheek, eyes shorn of comprehension, locked expression. Wilson was worried, but not scared. He knew what this was. And, after so many years, he also knew what to do and what not to do.

Comfort: ten percent. Thus his hand on House's cheek.

Leave House to sort everything out in his genetically exacting brain; allow him an unfettered moment to put their words and expressions in order and bring some sense to the cacophony of sounds and drowning emotions that moments before had surrounded him, rendering him unable to find the correct words to speak: fifty percent.

Patience: forty percent. Wilson had lots of that one.

Once House had been sequestered in quiet, it never took him more than one or two moments to snap out of it.

"Hey." Wilson said.

House's lost look having vanished, it was immediately replaced by his more customary intensity. "Shit." He blurted. "Did I-?"

"- You did nothing." Wilson assured him. "Three against one isn't fair."

For a few seconds more House looked back at his friend to check for any dishonesty. When he could find none, he nodded. "Thanks."

Wilson suggested. "Cuddy ought to be back in her office by now." Away from the upset parents in other words, and maybe more willing to be reasonable - and calm.

House nodded again, apparently satisfied. With his limping shuffle, he moved to the door, ready now to take on a lone Cuddy by himself, but not before Wilson stole a kiss from the corner of his mouth. "See you at five. I'll come get you."

"What's up with your patient?" Wilson remembered the parent's vocal anxiety over their son, who was not getting any better under House's watch.

"He's getting worse." House said, picking at his food. Dinner was spent seated at their dining nook set in the new, larger, more beautiful living space, that both were still getting to know. Especially House. Change was so much harder for him.

For House to have lost his appetite meant he was especially distracted over his case. "Blood was clean, urine was clean. He's been here two days and he's worse, except I have no idea what he's getting worse _from_."

"Define "getting worse"."

"Abdominal pain, muscle aches, vomiting, fever - he has all the earmarks of a viral infection but none of the antibodies. It's like his own body is doing this to him."

"I suppose you tested for Celiac?"

House nodded, abandoning his plate. Wilson had cooked spaghetti with his excellent meat sauce; a mixture of pork, beef, grated parmesan and his own collection of fresh herbs, but House's stomach was having none of it.

"Not hungry?"

House shook his head. "Sorry." He gestured to the partially eaten food. "I'll eat it tomorrow."

House was just saying that to be nice. He hated leftovers, but he knew how to be nice. Practice makes ordinary. Repetition makes normal. He _sounded_ nice, but he really didn't care about wasting the food. That was so unimportant next to what was currently occupying his whole attention - his team's case that needed solving. A kid House didn't know or much care about was sick. Caring wasn't the point. The sickness was, and House knew he could do something about that.

Wilson could tell the signs were there - House's obsessiveness, his focus narrowing to a single point in space - his one intent and need: to understand. Such exacting vision was well suited for the job; less so for private life. But Wilson knew how to distract House in a healthy way, so he could keep both of his lives on stable ground. So he could be happy.

Wilson stood, leaving clean-up for later, and circled the round, wood table next to the tall casement windows, now closed to the frosty winds of January. He bent over House. "Hey, want to spend the evening in bed?"

Wilson stared at his lover and his lover stared back with piqued interest. A small smile cracked House's granite concentration, and that was all the answer he needed.

"It's been four days." Taub unnecessarily pointed out. "The kid is getting worse. This has to be environmental."

House looked at his employee like he was nuts. "He's not in his home environment. If it was environmental, he would have gotten better just by being here." House paced back and forth, the rhythmic thumping of his cane becoming a menace to his underling's nerves. House ignored Taub's irritation and, almost shouting - "What else?"

Foreman knew it was a mistake to say so once again, but he could think of nothing clever, and it looked like they were getting mighty low on options. "Toxin."

House looked from Foreman to Thirteen and back. "You two back to sleeping together?" House asked. "Huh? Pillow talk differentials? We ruled _out_ toxins two days ago."

"But we haven't checked everywhere." Chase reminded his boss. "Something could have been carried in and somehow gotten onto the kid. A hospital is full of poisons and chemicals..."

House ran fingers across his chin. He hadn't electric shaved his beard back to its customary buzz for days, and he knew he was looking a bit Raggedy-man. "_What_ are his symptoms?"

Chase nodded. "Yes, we know his symptoms are mostly pain. Pain _is_ a symptom of poisoning."

"Which one?" House asked. He pointed the rubber tip of his cane at the door. "If you can narrow it down to under a hundred, we might be able to do something for him, but until you know..."

Foreman came to Chase's defense. "If we start swabbing, at least we'll be doing something."

House stopped his pacing. He was loathe to admit that he had nothing. The worst symptom the kid had manifested was the _lack_ of any symptom other than the pain. "Fine." He said, subdued. "Go swab the damn place."

Once his team was thankfully absent, House turned to his books and read for over an hour. Nothing leaped out at him from the pages of his many medical tomes. Pain was caused by over-exertion, cramping from lack of blood flow, encephalic disease working on the autonomic nervous system, damaged peripheral nerves, damaged muscle, damaged bones, diseased muscle or bone, cancer, thyroid disorders, toxins invading and damaging tissues, muscle death...

So many causes. But there was just one, just one thing causing this kid's pain. House instinctively felt that. He _knew_ it. He said - "Blood work was clean." to the handle of his cane in the empty room. "No previous injury, no drugs. Parents are health nuts, kid's diet was excellent, exercise regular, lots of sleep for a growing boy..." Something was missing. A crucial point of information that somehow they were all missing.

Wilson entered the office. "Hey, you missed lunch."

House tore his mind away from his thoughts focused inward, his eyes centered on the curve of his first, but not last, cane. Smooth, easy to look upon, an object requiring no effort to absorb, needing no particular disassembling of form to understand. The thing was simple in design and use - complete in it's purity of function.

Now his mind and other senses were needed in the world more resistant to intellectual dissection. Wilson, his friend and lover, was talking. "Lunch? Not hungry." But more was required here than simple facts. Always more was asked of him. He'd grown accustomed to providing for their social hungers. "S-sorry. This case..." Wilson was smart, and more than that, Wilson knew him. He would fill in the rest.

"Got you down, has it?"

Actually that was true though, in relation to his case, he had not looked upon himself like so until now. "Yeah. The human me is a mess."

Wilson sat, clasping his fingers in his lap, relaxed. Used to the two or three sides of his friend. "And what about the diagnostician?"

"Missing something."

Wilson fidgeted, not an easy thing to do while sitting, but his hands kept clasping and unclasping.

"What's going on?" House asked. "You're clenching."

"Dad and Mom are in town. They want to meet us for dinner." Wilson explained with some apology. "At Julio's."

Italian food with a splash of Mediterranean. "Odd choice for a pair of Jews."

Wilson nodded. House would refrain from the blunt references to his parents ethnic origins during dinner. They'd already lived through that semantic blast. The previous dinner out, where Wilson had announced to his bowled-over parents that he was now living, in-love, and sleeping with a man - who happened to be House - House had remarked on their stone-faced inability to say a word in response. "Wow. Speechless Jews. Pinch me." That dinner had ended on a stiff, feathers-ruffled note. But at least he hadn't been disowned.

"Best behavior." Wilson urged. "Please?"

House feigned insult. "You expect I'll be a bad boyfriend?"

"No, I expect you'll be a good boyfriend, just a bad dinner guest."

"I'll sit quietly this time. Happy?"

Wilson grabbed a quick kiss off House's rough cheek. "Shave."

"What's good on the menu for tonight?" Was Wilson's mother's rhetorical first words as she took her seat.

House listened passively to the beginnings of the boring night out. Stupid way to start a conversation. All she had to do to know that was read the menu. Her rhetorical question made no sense.

Rhetorical hadn't accompanied House to dinner, so he would be Helpful, as Wilson requested. "Lasagna with meat sauce or balls, linguini with the either of the above, bruschetta and melba toast or pita with garlic butter - the Mediterranean pizza is very good, or the Italian hot sausage pasta bowl; that's what you ate last time."

Last time was over a year ago. House had offered the information as a matter of course. He was supposed to be Friendly and Nice. Everyone told him so. Reciting for her the highlights from the previous and only time he had read the menu, was being polite. House didn't notice the odd look the mother gave him, but he did notice that she had not thanked him. House wondered at her atrocious dinner manner. May I? Please? Thank-you. You're welcome... anybody ought to be able to fake those.

Wilson's mom stared for a few seconds more at her son's strange and much older boyfriend, cleared her throat and went back to pursuing the menu's contents. In the end, she choose the lasagna and a glass of medium priced red wine.

House ordered non-alcoholic beer and the sausage pasta dish. Wilson and his dad decided to split a pizza.

"So," Dad Wilson asked after consuming a respectable portion of his food in silence, "how's work?"

Hiding behind the dessert menu, House rolled his eyes. He would force himself to endure another half hour of this subtle parent/son-and-his-crazy-old-boyfriend interview and then he was leaving. He had never been so bored, or so politely ignored. Not since the last dinner out. Thank god his own father was dead and his mom lived many hours away. The difference there was his mom liked Wilson and had expressed how happy she had been to know her son was in a healthy, loving relationship again - "_Finally!_" had been her words to her son.

Wilson's parents, on the other hand, merely tolerated him. House could see behind their well-bred expressions that they were silently biding their time, waiting for the day that Wilson came to his Jewish senses and dumped him. The father, whose name Wilson had mentioned several times on the cab ride over but which name was escaping him once more, looked upon Wilson as their prize offspring, and that fine breed of a Jewish specimen living with a homosexual atheist earned Wilson repeated disapproving throat-clearings, and House nothing but a malevolent stare through-out the entire first course.

Wilson's mother, - Muriam? Marian? Merrell? - Mommy-Wilson, clicked her perfectly polished nails until House accidentally dumped the salt shaker all over her lap, giving her something else to occupy her fingers. It would save her another trip to her manicurist. That was nice, wasn't it?

Both people were too aware of their tenuous hold on their son and would never out-and-out dare tell James to part with his new life-partner, but their faces wished it for him every time they looked House's way.

House could care less what Wilson's parents thought of him - or his remaining parent for that matter. Not when it came to how he lived his life. He also resented that he always ended up being the black sheep even when it wasn't his own family. Either way, Wilson always came out in the winner's circle. He could do no wrong even when he was, according to them, doing wrong.

"Spoilt _brat!_" House said.

Faces stared at him. Two sets of perplexed eyes looked to House, then back to the beleaguered martyr, their _son_, for an explanation.

House looked at Wilson. "I didn't say that out loud." He looked at Wilson. "Did I?" What was it he had said? He'd slipped a mental gear again. Powerful emotions were the bane of his life, and sometimes his memories got mixed up when they got oiled in the damn things. "Um, whatever it was - sorry?" He wasn't, but social decorum demanded he act like he was. And he only said the sorry part to Wilson, not to mom and dad. Best to ignore those who ignored him. Stupid dinner out.

Wilson kicked his leg under the table, then looked at his parents with a smile that excused his gay lover of the loose, often incomprehensible tongue. "House has a difficult case right now. A boy. He's very sick." Then patted House's hand to still any further verbal faux pa's.

"I don't understand. If he'd sick, how is he spoilt?" Misses Wilson wanted to know.

House knew Wilson wanted him to keep his lips clamped shut and let Wilson clean it up, but the words escaped before he had time to censor his own thoughts, and direct them to the correct fragment of conversation. "'Cause his parents are idiots." Stupid kid. _Stupid case!_

Wilson sighed, moving in fast to cover that over, too, as best he could. "They delayed bringing their son in for treatment." He explained in answer to his parent's profound disapproval of his rude, inconsiderate boyfriend. House's weirdness was far more on their worried minds than the nameless spoilt sick kid with, according to his doctor, morons for parents.

House shrunk behind his menu, ordered a huge serving of chocolate cake and liqueur ice-cream al-a-mode, and spent the remainder of the excruciating dinner experience licking sticky sweet stuff off of his lips and fingers. Stupid restaurant. Stupid Wilson's parents.

Wilson spent the last half hour soothing over his mom and dad's fears that he had taken up with a mental patient (an uncured mental patient) by talking of his own work and the typical American mundane sloth of his and House's home life. They were gay, yes, but Average. House was a little odd, admittedly, but everything was still American apple-pie Fine, Davy Crocket Good and very, very Norman Rockwell _Normal_.

If Norman had been gay and living with Sherlock Holmes on crack.

This was a little late but - there it was!

Part II asap


	2. Chapter 2

**The Male Man**

By GeeLady

Pairing: Established H/W

Rating: NC-17 Adult.

Summary: House had hidden his condition for a many years. But what happens when it becomes known at the worst possible time?

Disclaimer: Not mine...blah, blah, blah - though a fantasy never hurt anyone.

This story is in response to a prompt by AdamtheAnt. Thank you for the excellent idea! I hope the resulting fic' meets with your approval.

AN: I only know as much about Aspergers as I have read and researched. There are several chairs of opinion when it comes to what makes up an "Aspie's" mind; one such opinion suggests that the Aspberger mind is the extreme male spectrum of the human brain, an opinion many Aspies firmly denounce (particularly women with the disorder).

Aspergers has been called the "high functioning autistic". In my story, I have decided that House is a high functioning _Aspie_.

**I can only write as I **_**imagine**_** it might be like to view the world through the mind of a man with Aspergers (or to be the friend of the man with Aspergers), therefore some of my renderings may be inaccurate or just plain wrong! All other medical misunderstandings that may arise in this fic' about Aspergers, and autism in general, are mine and mine alone.**

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"He's early." Thirteen sounded positively stunned. She brushed long brunette hair out of her eyes and turned her quizzical look to Chase. "House is never early." She said. "I can't remember him ever being on time."

Chase glanced in House's directions. His boss was shedding his overcoat and dumping his back pack on the floor. He looked the same. Was dressed the same. "Maybe he got some."

Thirteen privately agreed. She was pretty sure House and Doctor Wilson were not only sharing a big, shiny new apartment, but probably a bed and a big, shiny new romance as well. Though she suspected their new love-in was not common knowledge, she'd noticed a change in him that she didn't think others saw. She mused - does it take one to know one? House was in possession of a quiet _glow_ about him that had surfaced over the last year or so. The way one looks when they're in love, and then one day waking up to the realization that it's going to last, too. He looked happy.

But happy or not, he was never _early_. Though he did often stay at the hospital for days when he had a baffling case.

House entered the conference room, going for his habitual AM mug of thick coffee with two creams, no sugar. "Kid?"

No "good morning" or "how are ya?". Thirteen sighed. Some things never changed. "No change."

House snatched up his black marker, pulling the lid off with his teeth. "Tho," he said through a mouth full of plastic marker lid, "we nee' to make sun'ting change."

"What?" Taub asked.

House removed the lid. "I thaid," He carefully articulated "We nee' to _make_ sun'ting change. Are you deaf?"

Thirteen couldn't help but smile just a little at House's mocking humor. Taub noticed his boss's good mood, too, but stuck to the medicine.

House stuck the marker back in his mouth. "Tho, Docktah Taub - wha' shud we _jew_?"

Taub read from their patient's chart. "How about we take him off everything and see what happens?"

House frowned. "You're tho humo'theth. Eat a thmile cookie for godth's thake." Then he spoke sans marker lid. "Fine, boring guy, what do we have him on?"

"Steroids, enteral feed, analgesics...it's about the only combination that didn't make him worse."

House looked from him to Thirteen. "And does the prettier colleague who appreciates good humor agree?"

Chase shrugged. "I got nothing. Take him off everything and see what happens."

House looked to Thirteen. "And the even prettier colleague..?"

She pointed to Taub and Chase. "What they said."

House narrowed his eyes. "You all still think this is environmental, don't you?" An evil anticipation washed across his face. "You did the swabs - you got a big, fat zero."

"In the light of clean blood work," Taub insisted, "it's still the most reasonable diagnosis."

House smirked. "Wanna' bet on it? _And_", he underlined, "a diagnosis without an _actual _diagnosis isn't _actually_ a diagnosis. Hoping the cards turn in your patient's favor is a lousy way to play doctor." House pulled five twenties from his wallet. "Anyone who cares to be humiliated later this week put your money down."

Taub added his money as did Chase. House waited for Thirteen. "Well?"

"I'm betting on the long shot." She said. "Except I'm not actually betting."

House handed her the three hundred bucks. "Then you're our escrow." Thirteen stuffed the bills down her shirt.

"The winner gets to retrieve the bills himself." House announced.

Thirteen ignored the joke and followed Taub and Chase out the door to go tend to their young patient.

House returned to his office and his own, more comfortable chair. That little exchange was fun, but tiring. He'd practically perfected social domination when the "crowd" was less than five and had mastered (mostly) taking turns when conversing. Several people screaming at him all at once, however...House shuddered. His worst nightmare. After so many years of forced interaction and daily practice, House was pretty good at faking the right emotions and reactions (when absolutely necessary), though he still didn't much like most crowds, or most people for that matter. The real stuff that was in him, he kept for those he trusted most. With his closest friends, he could be himself almost all the time, and that figure amounted to one - Wilson.

Cuddy and his team he didn't trust well enough yet to divulge his "condition", as his own physician/psychologist termed it. Give a thing a name, people suddenly think it's contagious and start acting like they've got rocks in their mouths and ants in their pants. How many rocks would it take in an average sized adult mouth to muddle speech? Would ants try and make their way into all the holes in a persons body? People had an awful lot of holes. Two eyes, two ears, two nostrils, a mouth, an anus, a belly button, a pee-hole and, on women, a vagina too. Men: 10. Women: 11. _Ten_ points of entry, not counting cuts or abrasions. _Weird_. No wonder people caught colds. So how many ants would that need to be - to make a person dance? Figuring their capacity to tickle or bite - probably less than ten.

House sat for a moment and imagined ants crawling under his shirt. Actually, it would probably take only one or two ants to cause an almost explosive reaction in most people. Somatosensation was the most "trustworthy" of human senses, and an ant or other insect walking around on your largest organ was a tickle with travel plans. House didn't like being tickled, as Wilson had found out soon after their first night together.

A feather had been Wilson's weapon of choice and House had reacting by bucking him off the bed onto the floor, cracking Wilson's right thumb. He'd paid for his unintentional physical gaff by walking around for the next month looking like he was trying to hitch a ride. It was sufficient payback. House laughed when he thought of it, even now. He bit his lip. You're not supposed to laugh at another's pain. House had given him some good advice the day the cast came off. _"Remember _- _tickling me hurts you."_

House wandered back out to the white board to once more read over the pathetically short list of symptoms. What causes radiating abdominal pain, other than cancer or stomach upset? The kid had not thrown up since arriving. He was getting proper enteral feeds, analgesics and steroids to combat this; if it should happen to be an allergic reaction, which it was sort of acting like. House shook his head. This was no good. He needed more details. He needed a deck of cards.

-

-

Wilson entered House's office to find his friend surrounded by playing cards stuck on the walls and to the surface of his desk. The cards were either standing alone or were grouped together in numbers that appeared, to him, to have no pattern. "Um,.." Wilson pointed around at the bizarre configurations. "New card game?" Of course, it wasn't.

House shook his head. "No. This is better than the white board. I can sort not only the symptoms but the underlying possible conditions that would cause each one. So far, I'm up to forty-seven."

Wilson stepped closer to one card House has taped to his computer screen. He could see no writing on it, other than the printed smile of the Jack of Spades staring back at him. "You don't have anything written on them."

House said it as though his partner ought to get it for crying out loud. "I remember the conditions they represent. No need to scribble."

Wilson knew House had an astounding memory for details and specific minutia. In particular was he able to recall almost everything he ever read with emphasis on medical or medically-related information, but to remember in his head what he hadn't actually needed to write down in order to remember it by _looking_ at playing cards used to represent what was already _in_ his memory...that was a new corridor. "Then why not just use what's already in your head?"

"Visuals are an aid to memory."

"But there's nothing _written_ on the cards."

"I told you, I remember what they _represent_. You see the Queen of Hearts - I see mesenteric ischemia."

That could cause abdominal pain. Wilson was beginning to see the back roads logic behind it, but now he just _had_ to know the whole trip. "Why didn't you just write the words on the cards so they can represent the conditions even better?"

"It hurts my hand."

"Oh. Um, ready to go?"

House glanced around the room. "I'm going to stay late and look at the cards some more."

"What do you do if you come up with a winning hand?"

"I shuffle the deck." House said, then explained further when he saw that his reasoning wasn't getting through. "I keep my winning hand, and start a new game."

"'Kay. See you at home. Any particular thoughts for dinner?"

House shook his head.

He'd make salad and teriyaki chicken breasts. House liked those.

-

-

Two members of his team shuffled back in after a day of sharing clinic duty and keeping an eye on their patient, watching for change.

"Kid okay?" House asked.

Taub and Thirteen made note of the weird spectacle of House sitting in his chair, rotating back and forth, hands resting on his cane, and staring at the playing cards. They'd seen stranger things from him. On the House-Odd scale, this was relatively tame. "Yes." Thirteen answered, gathering up her coat. "He's good for night, his fluids are up, and he's in no pain."

Taub only said a simple goodnight to them both and left.

House waited for the third and fourth team members, but they didn't make an appearance. "Where's Foreman and Chase?"

"They already went home." Thirteen said. She was dying to ask him about the cards, but she was tired, and she didn't think House would tell her anyway.

House nodded. Kid was okay for now. That was good - an improvement at least, and that meant he could go home, too. He gathered up his backpack and his winter coat and followed Thirteen out the door, shutting off the lights on the way out.

But the cards were staying up.

-

-

When Cuddy convinced the boy's parents to once again speak to Doctor House about their son, she was delighted they reluctantly agreed. Even though the father said: "He's a rude son-of-a-bitch, and if nothing changes in the next day with my son's condition, we're pulling him outta' here and taking him to back to Boston General." The wide solemnly agreed with him.

Cuddy, clucking assurances, lead them to House's office. She brought the angry parents right up and into House's private domain, entering without knocking, without so much as a glance through the door to see if House was awake, or asleep or naked.

House wasn't naked or asleep. He was staring at his playing cards, now up to three different colored decks, pasted all over his walls and desk. His cane swung back and forth like a sword, it's soothing rhythm a salve to his tumbling thoughts as he tried to decipher what this kid's problem might be.

Cuddy stopped dead in her tracks when she saw the state of her employee's think-space. She turned and quickly ushered the parents back into the hallway, not that it did any good at this point, she realized, since they had already laid eyes on the strange sight, and the walls of House's office were see-through anyway.

At first he had evidently not even seen the parents she had towed in on her good nature, but he did now as they stood in the corridor looking at him as though he were the last of a dying species, of a type no one would miss.

Cuddy stomped over to the accordion-ed blinds, located the cord, taking it harshly in hand, and sweeping the blinds shut with a single, vicious yank. She turned. "What in god's name is all this?" She asked, barely masking the frenzy in her voice. Sweeping her hand around the room, "Do you have any idea what this looks like?"

House didn't take his eyes off his cards. "A doctor trying to work?"

Cuddy stepped close to a section of cards crowded together on the surface of his desk. She shook her head. "House - playing cards on your walls?? This makes you look insane."

"Only to whomever you decide to drag in here." House turned to her, unable to keep his mind on its own work as it was obvious now that she intended to keep on talking. "What do you want? I'm trying to figure something out here."

"The parents want results in the next twenty-four hours, or they're taking their son back to Boston."

House shrugged. "Okay. Can I get back to work now?"

Cuddy threw up her hands. "Okay? _Okay??" _They had seen the nutty professor in all his kookiness, and it was too late to undo the kooky. "They've already seen this, whatever this is. You _have_ to cure the kid now, or they'll leave and spread this weirdness - _your_ weirdness - all over the medical community."

"So?"

Cuddy forced herself to calm down. Shouting at House was a useless waste of energy. He either didn't react at all, shouted back insults, or walked away. Today she could afford none of them. Cuddy walked up to him until she was standing only a few feet away. "You just got your license back. You can't afford to lose your position again."

That was true. He supposed he ought to take the time to explain to her why he was wallpapering with Hoyle brand playing cards. So much think-time wasted with hands-on "there-there" so his boss will smile, skip away and leave him blissfully alone. "These are memory aids. I'm categorizing what might be the more likely underlying cause of the kid's symptoms. Each likely cause for each symptom." there he had explained it in as few words as possible. She ought to shut up and spin on her two-inch heels.

Cuddy's face was smeared with suspicion. It was a mask he could virtually peel off of her. She wore ugly when she was around him. Cuddy stepped closer to the section of pasted-up cards House had been examining when she had burst into the room with the disgruntled mom and pop caboose.

She took a moment to actually look at the cards, not at the seeming lunacy they wore. They did seem to be grouped into a kind of order. Certain spades were with other certain spades, though the colors were different. Below, there appeared to be sub-categories, with a Jack's that smiled sideways with his buddy of a different deck, for example. She sighed. "Okay. Let's say this is some sort of research," she used the word as though its very nature was also in question. "what have you come up with?"

"Nothing yet."

Cuddy knew it was useless to keep up her side of a losing argument. House would act like House, and he didn't care who saw the show. "Fine. I'll take the parents to my office, and let Foreman speak to them. He at least, understands diplomacy."

"And break-in's. He's hell at break-ins."

Cuddy ignored that and left and, with a winning smile, shoo-ed the parents back down the corridor. turning back to his cards, he sunk into the world of order before Taub and Chase interrupted, standing there patiently.

House abandoned the cards for now. Solitaire would have to wait. "What do you got?" He sat down, butt and leg thankful.

"It has to be diabetes." Chase ventured. If House wasn't mistaken, he swore he saw Chase back up a few inches. Smart kid. "Diabetes?? Are you pulling my leg? Not a good idea."

Taub came to his co-workers defense. "It's the only thing that makes any sense."

"No it doesn't. Any medical student would be able to understand the results of a blood glucose test. You think his previous doctors went golfing and missed it?"

Taub handed him a sheet of paper. "We did a blood-glucose. He's plus eleven. Way too high for his pancreas to be working right."

House looked at the test result himself. "So you _do_ think all those previous physicians and lab tech's missed this? _No!_ stares us in the face. It can't be diabetes that brought the kid this far. The parents never allowed sugar in his diet. There is no way he developed insulin resistance."

"We gave him one unit of insulin." Chase handed House a second sheet of paper. "His levels dropped to normal."

House shook his head. Can't be that simple. "Of course he had sugar in his blood, we gave him IV glucose."

Chase shook his head. "Yes, but his pancreas didn't produce enough insulin to counter it. therefore sugar in the blood. That's diabetes."

House grabbed his cane. "His parents are veggan hippies." He stood up. "They insist their son hates sugar and sweets. Let's test out if Hippy Junior is a liar. Order him up a humongous slab of chocolate cake for dinner and watch him to see if he eats like a normal kid when the parents aren't around."

-

-

"House? The cake." Thirteen called in the door to Wilson's office. If House wasn't at home or in his own or Cuddy's office, he was here. House was sitting beside Wilson. Both had jumped when she suddenly opened the door. It made her wonder what. "The kid's refusing to eat. He really does dislike sweets just like his parents said."

"Did you do another blood glucose?"

"Yes." She said, her voice betraying her confusion. "And his insulin level has gone up."

House stared at her. "Are you sure he didn't eat any of the cake?"

She nodded.

"Did anyone sneak him an IV when you weren't looking?"

"No. And his abdominal pain is back."

House sighed. "Do a CT. Find out what the hell his digestive track is doing down there."

Wilson waited until she left. "Heard you had a run-in with Cuddy."

"Technically, she ran into me. I was minding my own business."

Wilson gave House his best look of sympathy. He knew House hated talking to patients, and understood the whys, but talking to the patient's families? An even worse nightmare. And talking to a patient's parents _and_ Cuddy, all of them screaming at him to "do something", without specifying exactly what they thought he ought to do...no wonder House had turned to stone. "Eventually, you're going to have to talk to these parents again you know."

"Sure. Right after I've cured the kid, I'll find a cool way for the dad to thank me. Him going away would be a good start."

Wilson wouldn't want to be anywhere near that conversation, unless it went downhill somehow. Maybe he ought to attend? Lately, he spent more and more time "consulting" with House during such encounters; any that he could manage to squeeze in while running his own oncology practice. More and more often he made certain he "just happened" to be near-by whenever he figured House was having a rougher time with the relatives than with the actual case.

But the team was getting suspicious. Once upon a time, Wilson had used his and House's new intimate relationship as a cover for helping House out of the little jams he occasionally got himself in to, but that guise was wearing thin. Other than a case that might be in some way cancer-related, he really didn't have any good reason to spend so much time hanging around House's office. Since there hadn't been any cases lately that required his input, he made a small show of being a trifle more cuddly (more than House publicly appreciated) whenever one of the team happened to be watching, as an excuse to stay close. He played up being in love to divert their attention onto him.

It was easy to see, though, that Foreman - naturally, being the neurologist, was the first to notice that some things about House were a bit off. More off than could be explained by the Vicodin or House's drinking or leg pain. And now that House was rid of the first two going on two years, his infrequent but noticeable "differences" were becoming clearer to anyone with enough of the specific medical training to notice.

For now, Wilson wanted House at home to himself. "Come on, I'll cook us up lasagna." That never failed to lure House anywhere he wanted him to go.

Dinner was short and an after dinner kiss from House on Wilson's cheek, as he had his hands in scummy water scrubbing the baked-on cheese from his best lasagna dish, had turned to lips on lips and then some. Soon the bed was squeaking under their arduous, naked thrusting and moans of pleasure.

House - his BFF with benefits. This was by far the biggest reason Wilson hung around him.

XXXXXX

TBC asap


	3. Chapter 3

**The Male Man**

Part IIIf

By GeeLady

Pairing: Established H/W

Rating: NC-17 Adult.

Summary: House had hidden his condition for a many years. But what happens when it becomes known at the worst possible time?

Disclaimer: Not mine...blah, blah, blah - though a fantasy never hurt anyone.

This story is in response to a prompt by AdamtheAnt. Thank you for the excellent idea! I hope the resulting fic' meets with your approval.

AN: I only know as much about Aspergers as I have read and researched. There are several chairs of opinion when it comes to what makes up an "Aspies" mind; one such opinion suggests that the Aspberger mind is the extreme male spectrum of the human brain, an opinion many Aspies firmly denounce (particularly women with the disorder).

Aspergers has been called the "high functioning autistic". In my story, I have decided that House is a high functioning _Aspie_.

**I can only write as I **_**imagine**_** it might be like to view the world through the mind of a man with Aspergers (or to be the friend of the man with Aspergers), therefore some of my renderings may be inaccurate or just plain wrong! All other medical misunderstandings that may arise in this fic' about Aspergers, and autism in general, are mine and mine alone.**

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"Doctor Cuddy - hi."

Lisa Cuddy looked over the rim of her coffee cup. A very blonde Allison Cameron, dressed in neat gray pants and a trim, blue V-necked sweater, stood by her lunch table holding a thick manila envelope, and sporting an uncertain smile of greeting.

"Hello." Cuddy, long black tresses woven into a tidy braid, was surprised to see her former employee. Cameron had left very suddenly, resigning and clearing out her locker within just a day or two. "Um, how are you?" She indicated with a wave of her hand for Doctor Cameron to take a chair, who she did so, folding nervous hands on her lap. "What brings you back to PTH?"

Cameron tilted her head, as though embarrassed. "Chase. He wants to talk to me."

Though she made a policy of not sticking her nose into her employee's private lives, she Cuddy couldn't help but be curious as to what Chase would have to talk to his ex-wife about. "I see."

Cameron cleared her throat. Chase was, evidently still a touchy, uncomfortable subject. "He wants to talk to me. I think he wants to get back together." Cameron looked at her hands, and at the envelope beneath them. "I agreed to meet."

Cuddy thought it rather naive of Chase to hold out such a hope. "Um, so you're here to...?" Cuddy now began to wonder what Cameron needed from her as, oddly, Cameron had come to her first.

"I-I know he wants to try again, but it's over for me. I just agreed so I could bring him the final papers. So he would sign them. He's been...resisting."

_Cold._ Cuddy thought. _Damn near heartless._ "Well, you don't need my permission. He's working for House."

Cameron looked puzzled. "Really? Still?"

Cuddy could guess what was going through the younger woman's mind: _It was House's influence that brought about the divorce in the first place. I left him because of House. _If Cameron thought that, she was lying to herself. "House didn't do this to you, you know." Cuddy said. "That was just the excuse _you_ needed to end it." Cuddy was pretty sure she was right.

Cameron stared back. She was..._insulted?_ Cuddy wondered. No. It was embarrassment. It was shame.

Cameron denied it none-the-less. "That's not true. I loved Chase." Cameron paused, and it looked as though she was about to tell Cuddy a whole lot more than was emotionally healthy. But then she simply said - "House _ruined_ him."

_Ruined?_ "How so?" As far as she could tell, Chase was doing very well. Surprisingly well, considering how hard he had taken losing that patient, Dibala - which had not his fault. Everything possible was tried, but nothing had succeeded. There was little else they could have done. Sometimes that was just the way it went. There were three laws of medicine. Number One: people got sick. Number Two: sometimes they died. Number Three: doctors can't always change rules number one or two.

"House is reckless." Cameron insisted. "And he teaches whoever works for him to be reckless. It's bad medicine."

"And you've never lost a patient?"

"Of course I've lost patient's. But I don't risk their welfare to try some hair-brained treatment that could kill just as easily as cure."

"A-n-n-d they're _dead_, so maybe you should." After years and years of dealing with House-birthed catastrophies, Cuddy still felt the need to defend him. She had hired him. Today there were people out there still alive and having families because of House. It had _not_ been a mistake. "You worked for him for three years, and you kept going back as I remember - hanging around his office, cutting in on differentials."

Cuddy remembered well Cameron's doey-eyed puppy-crush on the eccentric, though famous, diagnostician. She also recalled Cameron's grating whining when in the end House failed to live up to her personal expectations of romantic reciprocation. For a long time, Cameron had been hooked on House's charismatic brilliance and pathetic disability, becoming personally fired to rescue him from what she saw as his abject loneliness. Sure House had been lonely and miserable, but it had been his own choice.

Now here that same fledgling sat with wings spread, squawking about the odd bird who had raised her. Cameron hadn't fallen in love, she had fallen in _charity_. She was a one-woman salvation battalion attracted to people who were hurt, and driven to heal them. Then, when she finally (and swiftly) gave up on them, she in turn hurt them once more. "House was your cocaine."

Cameron stood, apparently having heard enough of her own shortcomings pointed out to her. "House is dangerous. You can't see it." Suddenly Cameron was tightly angry. "You've never seen it, or even acknowledged it. Thank god I got away before it was too late for me. Keeping House here is poison to those who are exposed to him. You're blind if you can't understand that."

Cameron spoke her mind to her old boss, since she did not work under House or Cuddy anymore, it was her right.

Cuddy was a little taken aback by the venom in her tone. Wings and a sharp beak.

"You've never been able to see it," Cameron said again, "and that makes you equally guilty."

Cuddy thought of a half dozen things to say to her former staff member, several of which would have put her properly in her place. But, frankly she didn't have the energy to care. "Chase is probably in the lab." A simple, curt dismissal and Cameron took it, walking away.

Cuddy watched her leave thoughtfully. A very strange visit. Cuddy felt as though lately she had been kept quite out of the loop on House's little diagnostic circus. But, again, what with now being not only a full time mother, but an administrator, and also half of a new personal, private-life partnership, she just didn't have the energy or the interest enough to snoop. "How strange." She muttered, sipping at the cafeteria's excuse for coffee. She make a face, setting it down with a sigh. It had gone cold.

-

-

The kid was alone. Save for the steady beeping of the pulse monitor, there was nothing to disturb him. House slid the door aside and slipped into the room as silently as possible. He was stable, but no better. At least the parents weren't there to interrupt his thinking. This was when he did his best puzzling, a quiet hospital room with the muted choir of hospital noises just outside the door, in the background. Or when Wilson said something that hit the perfect mental spot and - kapow! - epiphany.

Right now he had nothing.

The door opened and House turned to find a nurse and his patient's parents piling into the room like a herd of jostling cows, the nurse pushing a tray with a jug of water and a bowl with a lid on it.

House halted the wheelie tray, looking under the lid. "I didn't order any food for my patient." He said to the nurse, his tone leaving no doubt in her mind what an idiot he thought she was.

She nodded her carefully coiffed head to the parents. "They insisted."

The dad, a tall, chubbifying man with a brunette buzz cut crossed his arms defiantly. "My son hasn't eaten anything for days."

House nodded. "Right. Because those were my orders. Water's fine but otherwise he's PO until I say so."

"This can't be healthy." The mom insisted. "Look at him - he's losing weight."

House shrugged. "And he'll lose more until I can figure out what's _killing_ him." House answered. "I'm assuming, since you're his parents, you'd think that slightly more important than Quaker Oats."

"We'll see about that." The dad said with unmistakable threat. "I called Doctor Cuddy. She's going to put a stop to this...nothing...that you're doing."

The mom looked equally triumphant. "He needs to eat. Doctor Cuddy agreed that there was little chance some plain oatmeal would do him any harm."

House sighed, about to tell the parents what they and their parents, and their _parent's _parents could do with the bowl of oatmeal when Cuddy entered the room. "Mister and Misses Chamney? What can I do for you?" Then she looked over at House and, seeing the angry pinch between his eyes, revised her question. "What's going on?"

"He won't let us feed him the oatmeal you ordered." The Dad informed her. "He's trying to trump your medical opinion."

Cuddy didn't rise to the between-the-lines flattery. "When it comes to diagnostics," She said distinctly, "he's right to do so." Cuddy asked House "Will the oatmeal in fact hurt him?"

House stared back at her for a moment. "Probably not, but then we don't know what's going on in his body, so we don't actually know what will or won't hurt him." House turned to the dad. "But - hell - if you're okay with gambling with your kid's life, by all means, stuff him to his neck." House strode from the room, the angry retreat watered down by his halting gimp. Cuddy waved the nurse and the offending oatmeal out the door, dismissing them both and then herself followed House. The parents followed her.

Right to House's office where seventy-nine playing cards adorned the walls and surfaces of his offices. Cuddy took one look around and felt her heart sink to her guts. because she knew the parents had followed her, and they had already seen the cards, too. "Oh my god..." She said under her breath. Then to House who was seating himself down in his desk chair, determined to ignore them all. "House. What the hell is all this?"

Walking further into the room, the parents stared in shock at the bizarre display. The dad turned to Cuddy. "Who the hell _is_ this guy? Is he even a doctor?" He waved his arms at the walls, as though Cuddy had failed to see the craziness in it. "He's got _cards_ pasted all over his office. He's got to be a nut case."

Cuddy dealt with the parents first. "You can't be here." She said, escorting them to the door.

The dad side-stepped her guiding hand. "Like hell we don't! You've got this crazy bastard treating our _son_!"

Cuddy nodded, and tried again to encourage them to leave with a touch of her hand to the mother's arm. "I know how this looks, but Doctor House is out best doctor. I assure you..."

"I want him removed from the case." Dad spat angrily in House's direction. "We want another doctor to treat our son."

Cuddy opened the door. "Make yourselves at home in my office. I'll be there in a minute to discuss it." This time there was no uncertainty in her tone. They had to leave. "Do we really want to get security involved in this?" She asked them.

"Are you threatening me?" The dad asked, outraged.

Cuddy, patient as a mother, shook her head. "Of course not. But you're not authorized to be here, and it is against hospital policy for me to let you stay. We'll take this up in a few minutes. In my _office_."

The parents reluctantly obeyed and Cuddy turned to House. "Now. Tell me, what all this is supposed to mean."

House looked around at his physical memory. "To you? Nothing. To me? I'm postulating theories."

Cuddy raised her eyebrows, doubt in every hair. "Postulating theories? With _playing_ cards?"

House nodded. "Yup."

It wasn't the weirdest thing she had ever seen House do, but it was near the top of the list. "So, how is the postulating going?"

House leaned back in his chair. "Nothing so far."

Cuddy knew the parents had seen enough - too much - to ever want House back treating their son. "I'm assigning the case to Foreman. You can sit in on the differentials, but it's his case now."

His chair swiveled back and forth, a side to side rocking. House did that a lot. Endorphins she supposed. "Since when did you start letting parents make medical decisions?"

"It's not the parent's decision, it's mine. And the parents _will_ have the final say in any treatment we might provide. They should." She was a mother now. She didn't necessarily agree with their decision, but she understood them.

"Do _you_ think I'm crazy?"

Cuddy stared back for a moment, biting one corner of her lip. "Once upon a time, House, you _were_."

"Do you think I'm crazy right _now_?"

"No. But the parents do, and that's all that matters to them."

"Fine." He said.

Cuddy waved a hand to his card system. "Get these off the walls."

-

-

Chase was nowhere to be found. Cameron checked her watch. It was lunch time for most. Maybe he went out somewhere for a bite? Staff weren't supposed to do that, but some often did anyway. There was only one place she had not checked, and that was House's office. If Chase was anywhere in the hospital, he'd be there. She did not relish going back to the place she saw as the beginning of the end of her relationship with Chase, but she needed the papers signed.

Cameron peeked in as she walked by. Foreman was sitting at the conference room reading a thick chart, but otherwise the place was deserted. House was absent from his office, too. She had a thought.

Cameron was about to knock on doctor Wilson's office door when voice from inside stopped her.

_"Maybe I should tell Cuddy about my Aspergers."_

It was House's voice. Aspergers? House had Aspergers?

_"Why?"_

Wilson's voice.

_"Because the kid's parents saw my cards."_

_"Oh."_

Other than the mention of Aspergers, Cameron had no idea what they were talking about. What cards?

_"You're not obligated to say a thing to her or anyone, unless it's affecting your ability to do your job."_

_"It's part of the reason I do my job so well."_

_"Part of, yes. Not all of. Cuddy has no right to your personal medical history. She's not your attending. She's not even your proxy."_

Cameron walked away. House had Aspergers. It spun around in her head, its letters splitting apart and then arranging themselves again, until she could make them into something that made some sense. But it only came back to -

Aspergers?

No wonder...all those years...so many things suddenly slipping into place in her memory. House's momentary zoning out. His need to fidget every minute. His uncomfortable way of finding the humor in something that no one else thought was the least bit funny. His bluntness that came across as merely rude. House had never beat-around-the-bush, he had always presented facts as he saw them; told you exactly what he thought, shockingly oblivious to the dust his form of communication had often stirred up. Aspergers explained his social awkwardness, despite having been raised as nothing less than a world traveler. It explained why, at age fifty-one, he only had one friend in the world. The only man who could tolerate him - love him even.

How long had Wilson known?

The shock of hearing it passed. Maybe it explained a lot, but it didn't excuse anything. House was still reckless and selfish, and a danger to himself and others. Losing Chase to House's magnetic charisma had been the final rotten apple. Cameron decided it was high time to upset the cart.

When she saw Cuddy was alone in her office, Cameron entered without knocking and walked right up to her desk. "Did you know that House has Aspergers?"

Cuddy looked at her as though she were a crow who had just flown in, perched on her desk and started speaking. "Uh,..." Cuddy shook her head. "What was that?"

XXXXX

TBC asap


	4. Chapter 4

**The Male Man**

Part IV

By GeeLady

Pairing: Established H/W

Rating: NC-17 Adult.

Summary: House had hidden his condition for a many years. But what happens when it becomes known at the worst possible time?

Disclaimer: Not mine...blah, blah, blah - though a fantasy never hurt anyone.

This story is in response to a prompt by AdamtheAnt. Thank you for the excellent idea! I hope the resulting fic' meets with your approval.

AN: I only know as much about Aspergers as I have read and researched. There are several chairs of opinion when it comes to what makes up an "Aspies" mind; one such opinion suggests that the Aspberger mind is the extreme male spectrum of the human brain, an opinion many Aspies firmly denounce (particularly women with the disorder).

Aspergers has been called the "high functioning autistic". In my story, I have decided that House is a high functioning _Aspie_.

**I can only write as I **_**imagine**_** it might be like to view the world through the mind of a man with Aspergers (or to be the friend of the man with Aspergers), therefore some of my renderings may be inaccurate or just plain wrong! All other medical misunderstandings that may arise in this fic' about Aspergers, and autism in general, are mine and mine alone.**

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"I said House has aspergers." Cameron repeated.

Cuddy leaned back in her chair. Rather than get curious, which was what Cameron would have expected, Cuddy asked - "And you're telling me this because...?"

"Because it might go a long way in explaining why House acts the way he does-"

"-I admit House is odd, very odd actually, but up to this point it's never impeded his ability to think or accomplish his job. So I can only assume you're telling me this, not for his good or for mine, but for yours." Cuddy narrowed her eyes. "This is revenge. House fired you, so you want pay-back."

Cameron's features pinched. "House didn't fire me, I left."

"But Chase stayed, and that's what's stuck in your craw." Cuddy sighed. "I don't know what you're trying to start by coming to me with this, but even if House does have aspergers, I have no authority to ask him about it. It's a _condition_, not a crime. And medically, unless it can be determined that it severely compromises his ability to do his job - and thus far I haven't seen that - it's none of my business. As his boss, not his physician, I'm not even supposed to be privy to that kind of information."

Cameron knew all of that. Still, it rankled her that Cuddy was dismissing it as trivial. "Suppose his condition put a patient at risk, even innocently?"

"The catch-word there is innocent. And it hasn't done so in the past, so why would it do so now?"

"How can you be sure it never did so in the past? How can you know for absolute certain that his condition, a genetic brain disorder, has not been a factor in House's past behavior with his patients; his decisions; his inability to communicate with people on any normal level. I don't mean to be cruel - "

"- sure you do."

"-but I think the parents should know."

Cuddy stood up, her face darker, angrier. The pride's lioness staring down a younger challenger. "Well, I don't. If this were medication-controlled epilepsy, we would not be having this discussion. All this is, is your attempt to screw with the man you blame for ending your marriage. Leave House alone. In fact, why are you still here at all? You don't work here anymore. Go get your hair done, Cameron, go shopping." Cuddy was angrier than she liked to admit. "Go do whatever but stay away from my staff."

After Cameron's departure, Cuddy sat and fumed. She was angry with Cameron for sure, but she was also concerned about the news of House's undisclosed condition. What if it _had_ affected his decision making? What if it was doing so now? She also felt a touch hurt that he had chosen not to confide in her. So she decided to ask the next best man.

"Why didn't you tell me House had asperger's?"

Wilson looked up from his desk littered with papers. House had left not ten minutes before so, despite his advice, it appeared like House had he gone and told Cuddy anyway. "Um, because it was none of your business."

Cuddy sat down. "I know that." She sat back, unsure about what to do with this new information that was none of her business. "But House could have confided in me. I wouldn't have blabbed it to anyone. I _can't._ He knows me better than that."

Wilson nodded. "True. You wouldn't have, but that doesn't mean he needed to tell you. It's not relevant to his job in any way."

That was correct of course. House had always been a little "off", but no so much as it made him some sort of incompetent. The man was brilliant and always had been. "Is he okay?" She asked. For some reason she was now more worried about her most unusual employee than before Cameron's little evil revelation a short half hour ago.

Wilson dropped his pencil. "See? That right there - _that_ reaction - is why House never said anything to you or anyone else. Now that you know, you're thinking about him differently. You'll probably _look_ at him differently now."

"Don't be ridiculous." Cuddy protested, but Wilson did have a point. She was thinking differently about House already. "If you say he's fine, then I'll accept that. And I will not look at him differently."

Wilson took up his pencil again. "Good."

As Cuddy abandoned his visitor's chair and walked to the door -

"Wait a second. How did you find out anyway? I know House never told you, and no one else but me knows about it."

Cuddy thought maybe she should keep Cameron's little spurt of revenge to herself. What the hell. "Cameron came to me and blabbed. She knows. Don't ask me how."

-

-

Wilson found Cameron in the cafeteria, talking to Chase. He walked directly to their table where, he noted, Chase sat with a sick look on his face, and decided he would take it up with her right then and there. As he approached the table, he could see an manila envelope in Chase's fingers. He was alternately staring at it and at Cameron, looking like he'd just been kicked in the stomach.

When Wilson drew near enough, he overheard Chase say "I asked you here to talk and instead you bring _this_?"

The scene was eerily familiar. Wilson, too, recalled that awful day when he'd received the dreaded manila envelope - divorce papers all ready for him to sign.

Cameron tried not to squirm. "Chase, we both know this is over."

"I don't." He shook his head, about to say more when Wilson appeared at his side. Chase clammed up.

Wilson hated to interrupt their uncomfortable lunch, he had enough to worry about in his own life and didn't feel like hearing about other people troubles as well, but Cameron needed to hear what he had to say, so he launched into her without so much as a howdy-do. "What the hell do you mean by revealing House's asperger's to Cuddy? It's none of your damn business."

Chase found the information as startling as Cameron had although, as a House-ling, had always been less inclined to spread rumors than most. Cameron, on the other hand, had a doctorate in the art of gossip.

Cameron went immediately on the defensive. "She _should_ know. We _all_ should have known. We put up with his crap for years, and so much of the time the fault was made our to be ours. His carelessness put on our shoulders; us cleaning _up his_ messes. I'm not sorry for letting Cuddy know. The real problem has always been House, not us."

"Have you ever _read_ anything about asperger's?? You are a doctor, right? Or are you just hoping to hurt House one last time before you leave for good? When is that happening anyway?" Wilson asked. "I arranged a little celebration and I need to know how many bottles of champagne to bring." Wilson made himself get back to his point. "House's asperger's has nothing to do with the performance of his job, which he is doing, by the way, just as well as ever. Better, even."

Cameron seemed un phased by his criticism and back-handed insult. "You're his best friend, you're biased. You of all people ought to understand that I'm only trying to protect his patients." She lifted her head more erect. "Just like always."

"Right." Wilson said while not believing it for a second. "You don't work here anymore. Do everyone a favor and stop trying to make our lives better. We can't take the stress." Wilson turned away and then turned back. "And stay the hell away from my boyfriend."

Wilson granted himself a small smile at Cameron's stunned face. So, he was pleased to note, Cameron hadn't known everything.

-

-

Cuddy answered the call of the on-duty nurse, and entered the patient's room to find her hands full of a very angry father and a House holding a paper towel to his bleeding nose. "What's the problem?"

The father, shaking the stinging out of his fist, pointed at House. "You know he's not supposed to be here."

Cuddy looked at House for an explanation, one eyebrow on the rise. House knew he wasn't supposed to be there, too.

"I had an idea the parents might be lying about their kid's medical history." He offered.

Cuddy started to ask more when the father started another tirade. "He asked me if I really cared about my kid? What the hell kind of question is that? Does he think we don't love our-?"

Cuddy turned to the father - "Shut up." Then shook her own anger off long enough to throw the dad an apologetic look and steer House from the room. In the hallway - "Why do you think they're lying?" House might be off the case, but he was the consulting physician.

Glad to be out of the reach of the father's fists, but not exactly comfortable - "Because nothing makes sense." He said through his still bleeding nose that was quickly clogging up with snot and congealed blood. House sounded awful and was starting to look worse. "Blood, urine, allergies, heavy metals," He said through his mouth, sounding like it was allergy season, "anything we can think of that might be causing this kid's symptoms is negative_. Every_ test, _every_ time."

Cuddy carefully removed the sodden towels from House's hands, and replaced them with fresh ones from a nearby dispenser. "That looks broken."

House snorted to clear his nasal passages with little success. His face hurt like hell. "Probably."

"You have such a way with people." Cuddy muttered. "Go have one of your team or Wilson take a look at that to see if the bone needs setting. And stay away from the parents like I asked you to."

House frowned at her. "I wasn't trying to insult him, I was trying to find out more information."

"Have your team find out."

"They're wusses. They don't ask the right questions and when they do, they back down at the first sign of trouble."

Cuddy smiled. A small, humorless ironic twist of lip. "Funny, isn't it, how they _don't _have broken noses or gun shot scars."

"You're right." House walked away. "A scar _is_ worse than a dead patient."

Cuddy watched him leave and took a few minutes to sooth the irate father, plus hand him a warning about assaulting doctors and the charges the hospital would bring against if it should happen again, before returning to her office. How many other times had it been House's mouth that had illicited trouble for himself, his team or the hospital? House used to be just House. Now, Cuddy wondered, was it his condition that was to blame?

-

-

Wilson finished applying the last wet strip of plaster of Paris to his lover's facial protuberance. "How many times are you going to let a patient's relative get away with breaking your face?"

"I guess as long as they keep being stubborn, idiot relatives."

Wilson handed over a fist full of strong pain killers. "Here. For the pain."

House, perched up on an exam table, pocketed them. "S'okay. It'll distract me from the leg."

Wilson looked at him incredulously. "House, you should go home. This is going to bruise and you'll look like a cyclops with one, big purple eye."

"There's no septal hematoma, my cartilage'll be fine. In a week I'll be as handsome as ever. Besides, the leg already feels better."

Wilson sighed. "Only you would welcome a broken nose as a treatment for leg pain."

Tearing the paper sheet in the process, House slipped off the table - a simple thing to do because of his height and the length of his legs. "There are better distractions." He said suggestively. "More fun ones."

"Not at the office." Wilson took a few seconds to indulge a look at House's nicely padded backside before he could slip on his jacket. Sometimes Wilson wished he had more of an ass, but as long as he had House's ass, he tried not to complain. But _never at the office_ sucked. "How's the patient?"

"Thin as the cafeteria's soup. I don't know how this kid grew up with vegans as parents."

"No meat, huh?"

"No meat, no eggs, no milk, and I'm betting no flavor. They eat nothing that poops, and nothing that _came_ from anything that poops."

"So. Obsessive, then. Hmm, now who does that remind me of...?"

House tossed Wilson a false hardy-haw. "I'm not obsessive, I'm focused."

"Hungry?"

House shook his head then regretted it. "No. I gotta' go see if the Dad'll be good enough to break a few fingers this time. Should distract me from the nose."

"Cuddy wants you to stay away from the parents."

"Cuddy's neither _here,_ nor _there_."

-

-

House skirted the patient's room for the time being and headed-off his team who were putting their coats on and making like they were going home for the night. House lasso-ed them all back with a deep scowl and two words. "Hello-o-o. Differntia-a-l."

Thirteen pulled her hair from beneath the collar of her coat. "He's stable and none of us have slept in over twenty-four hours."

House sat down at the head of the table, then noticed Foreman looking at him. "Oh? You want this chair? Right, I'm not officially on the case, however I'm still officially your boss."

Foreman reluctantly sat back down, along with Thirteen, Chase and Taub.

House was unsympathetic. "If ya' want the power, ya' gotta put in the time." He looked around the table at four sets of bagged eyes. "Ideas?"

House got blank faces from all four. "When I hired you, I'm pretty sure your _mouths_ came with the package."

"House, we're exhausted." Thirteen said.

Chase chewed a pencil, dreaming of home. "We can't think anymore."

House stared at them each in turn for a few seconds. "Right. Okay, then." He stood up.

Thirteen took that as a signal to again put on her coat, but House stopped her with another scowl. "I said okay, then. I didn't say go home." He left the room. "Follow me."

House lead them to patient's room where the mother sat beside her sick son who was for the present sleeping. The husband was nowhere in sight. The wife looked at House with a flash of annoyance then turned her attention back to her child.

House stood in the doorway and asked the child's mother. "Ever hit anyone or do any boxing?"

She shook her head.

"Good." House walked up to the bedside. "What are you feeding your son behind your husband's back?"

The mother sputtered, but House shook off her protests with a wave of his cane. "Don't bother denying it. One of you is cheating on the Vegan god and making your son cheat, too."

Chase leaned in and asked House. "Why are _we_ here?"

House didn't turn around. "Protection."

Foreman and the team had heard about the run-in House's nose'd had with the father's left hook. The nose cast made it obvious to everyone else as well. "But the dad isn't here." Foreman whispered.

House tapped his cane on the floor. "See? It's working." To the mother - "Your son has an allergy. He also has almost no body fat which I know _looks_ healthy but actually isn't, especially for someone his age. So either he isn't sick, or he is because your feeding him something that dear ol' dad would disapprove of."

The mother looked worried but kept her mouth shut.

Taub whispered. "We ruled out allergies."

House turned half way around and whispered back, though loudly enough that the everyone in the room could easily over-hear. "But we didn't rule out a possible toxin on the food the mom's sneaking in." He turned back to the mother. "So?"

"I'm not-" She started to say when her son started shaking from head to foot. It began gradually, then rapidly increased in speed and severity.

His team members all appeared stunned. House stepped aside. "I also brought you here to do doctor stuff." He urged.

The momentary group-freeze vanished and Foreman ran from the room to the nurses station and back. He carried a syringe. "No IV..." He jabbed it into the boy's upper arm and depressed the tiny plunger.

The boy's shaking slowed and ceased. "That was no epileptic seizure." Foreman said.

House silently agreed. He bit his lip. "Draw some blood. Check his glucose. And MRI his pancreas"

"You're thinking diabetes?" Taub asked. "If this was JD, he would have died years ago without treatment."

"I'm thinking MEN." House said.

"Multiple Endocrine Neoplasia?" Chase repeated. "Then we should check his pituitary and thyroid as well."

House said "Great, but focus on the pancreas like I asked. Hypoglycemia causes seizures that look just that one. I oughta' know." He said under his breath. "Been there, done that."

Taub sniffed. Then sniffed again, lifting his nose in the air. House turned puzzled eyes on his shortest employee. "I'm wearing AXE." He offered. "And I know it's irresistible but -"

Taub walked over to the room's small trash container that had been shoved behind the curtain surround. "I smell banana." Taub said and fished his hand into the plastic basket, pulling out his catch; a fresh banana peel.

House looked back at the mother's guilty face. "It's not a smoking gun, but it'll do."

XXXX

TBC asap

Next Chapter of EVEN TRADE tomorrow!


	5. Chapter 5

**The Male Man**

Part V

By GeeLady

Pairing: Established H/Wf

Rating: NC-17 Adult.

Summary: House had hidden his condition for a many years. But what happens when it becomes known at the worst possible time?

Disclaimer: Not mine...blah, blah, blah - though a fantasy never hurt anyone.

**All medical misunderstandings that may arise in this fic' about Aspergers, or autism in general, are mine and mine alone.**

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"House, I need to speak to you."

House almost didn't turn on his heel and follow Cuddy into her office. Not a very private affair when the blinds were up. But he did as he was told, contemplating other possibilities before even sitting down in her hard visitor's chair.

Cuddy took more than a moment to gauge his mood while looking like she was doing nothing of the kind.

"I'm fine." House growled. He almost considered pulling a very House-ish drugged-up zone-out, so Cuddy would call Wilson to come and figure out what the hell was wrong with him, or what the hell he was up to this time. But he didn't want her scrutinizing him any more than was comfortable, which wasn't much. Ever since he had started sleeping with Wilson, Cuddy's watchful eye and personal attention, so previously sought after and toyed with, now felt more like disapproving scrutiny and nosiness. Under Wilson's special ministrations day and night, Cuddy had morphed from possible romantic interest to back into old friend and boss.

"If fine means frenetic, insecure, neurotic and emotional, I'd agree."

"The dad hit _me_, not the other way around."

"You provoked him."

"Witnesses?"

"The mom."

"Biased."

"But good eyesight." Cuddy sighed. "Is there anything you want to tell me?" She asked an innocently and kindly as that sort of fakery could be faked.

"No." House said succinctly.

"Nothing personal?"She persisted. "Nothing that's bothering you?"

"Did Wilson say something? Or do something? Like buy the condo you wanted out from under you? It was his signature on the check, I just came with the furniture."

"No."

House could tell she badly wanted to open up a discussion with him about something. "You and Lucas have a lover's quarrel? Is he going to start fire-cracking my shoes now?"

Cuddy sat back and started twisting a pen between her fingers. It was Cuddy for I'm in Control Here. "I talked to Lucas about that."

"Great. Did you talk to him about my ruined record collection and antique medical volumes? Or Wilson's family photo's? Or the massive bruise on my back from the bath tub faucets?"

That hit the right spot. Right through the figurative heart. House was surprised by his own anger. Lucas' little break-in's had been amusing up to a point, and House at first had praised his ingenuity in rigging the sprinklers to go off in the middle of the night, but soaking everything they had moved to the condo - the first boxes, the personal items, had been just plain mean.

"What he did was wrong. A state that you're more than a little familiar with."

House stood. "Is this all you wanted to talk to me about? 'Cause I've got a patient to save."

"A patient for your team to save." Cuddy bit her lip. It was none of her business. Staying out of House's personal, private business, that at least she wanted to salvage between them. "You can go."

-

-

You know, House, sometimes a banana is just a banana." Taub quipped as they walked to the hospital lab.

House looked at him with perfect reason. "Or it's not just a banana and by that I mean it is, and it triggered a severe reaction to glucose in our patient. And I don't mean he started swinging from the light fixtures - he _seized_. He's sugar intolerant, therefore diabetic."

"His pancreas is perfectly normal. Or he's malnourished and the sudden rush of sugar to his blood stream caused a serotonin storm which caused the seizure." Taub countered with insufferable Jewish calm. House looked over at Taub, stubbornly still at his side, still talking. "Why are you following me? Go back there and make sure the mom doesn't cheat her son again by making him cheat on his dad and his dad's organic religion with a mango."

Taub pursed his lips and tracked away back toward the patient's room.

House continued walking to the elevator, making his way to Wilson's office. Wilson was with a patient, and tried not to look irritated by House's un-announced entrance. The middle-aged woman in the pink, tidy pant-suit looked up at House wonderingly when he did not excuse himself and disappear again.

House stuck a thumb out at the door. "I need to talk to my colleague."

"House..." Wilson warned him with not a great amount of enthusiasm. He didn't want House to leave just yet. Not until he had a chance to update him on Cameron's mouth.

When the woman didn't budge, House frowned at her. "I'll rephrase that, I'm in the mood for some suck-face with my boyfriend so, since you're not doing anything but sitting there, vamoose for a minute, will ya'?"

Wilson stood, escorted his patient to the door, whispering in her ear something only a few words of which House caught.

Sitting down again, House joined him in the opposite chair. "Did you just tell her I'm a patient?"

"No, I apologized for your rudeness and asked her to _be_ patient."

"Oh."

"What's up?"

House had an especially grumpy pinch to his brows. A sight that used to bother Wilson from many directions, one of which it made House's true mood difficult to pin down. He almost always looked grumpy to one level or another; it was a manifestation of deep thought. But since they'd begun their romantic activities, it was an expression Wilson delighted in rubbing off House's face by vigorous, well-placed kisses, and it always worked. "Patient not doing well?"

"Not really. What are we doing for dinner?"

Used to House's abrupt changes of thought - "I thought we'd go out. You look like you could use some relaxation."

"I'm more relaxed at home."

"What did Nolan say?"

"More social recreation. But you and I can't "recreate" in a cafeteria booth. Your bed is much more comfortable."

Wilson smiled a little. Now came the more difficult part of the conversation. "Cameron talked to Cuddy."

"Oh?" House sounded bored, his mind clearly on his patient, or dinner, or bed-time, or a combination of all three.

"She spilled to Cuddy about your Aspergers'."

House looked unimpressed. "So _that's_ what that was."

"What _what_ was?"

"Nothing. Cuddy intercepted me this morning, wanted me to talk about my feelings or something." Cameron's feelings for him, which appeared drastically altered of late, had always been a source of awkwardness. Not for him, but for her. For House it was simple. She cared, he didn't. She loved him, or had once loved him, he didn't love her and never had. "Cameron always was an eavesdropping snitch." House could imagine where he might have ended up had he taken Cameron up on her offer of love and affections. Probably broken-hearted and then divorced just like Chase. "Cuddy can't do anything about it, it's not relevant to my work. My unique and wonderful personality has nothing to do with my ability to do my job."

"But if she told Cuddy, she probably told the rest of the team. And" Wilson hated to say it, "I think Cuddy's concerned." At House's questioning face. "Cuddy came to me earlier. Wanted to talk about it."

House dismissed any concern for Cuddy's concern or Wilson's concern that Cuddy was concerned. "Well, if I freak out, just tell her I was drunk."

"Right." Wilson sat back. "Look, _I_ know it doesn't make any difference to the way you do your job but, now that it's out there, it will make a difference in the way people perceive you doing your job. Plus you've been banned from going near your patient."

"Since when is that something new?" House sighed. Leg. Pills. Detox. Physical therapy. Shrink. He was doing everything he was supposed to do. Altering the way he _thought_ was not something they would add to his rehab menu. Ever. "If Cuddy thinks I'm screwing up, she wouldn't have defended me to the dad."

"Doesn't mean she won't still kick your ass some other way, like more clinic hours."

"When I'm not looking, my Asp' already kicks my ass." House wanted to drop it. Despite the angry dad's fist and Cuddy's subsequent sequestered little tantrum, it had been a better week than last. His patient was still alive, for one thing. "So, dinner?"

"The father could bring charges."

"Or I could save his son. Which do you think he'll go for in the end?"

True. Anyone who brought their child to a physician as famous and reputable (at least medically), as House, was an idiot if he barred his unique skills at this juncture. But House's antics had scared the family off. The playing cards scotched-taped all over House's office walls had popped the dad's last reserve of confidence in his son's physician. House showing up in the son's room despite the dad's wishes had topped that off nicely. House's leverage with the dad had disappeared with a bloody nose. The dad hadn't know any better.

Wilson regarded his antagonistic, brilliant work and home-mate. Somehow, when genius and odd went together, no one worried about it. It was expected - indulged even. But when perceived weirdness had a name, a scientific Name in a medical book, people began to squirm as though they had suddenly discovered worms crawling around in their shorts.

Wilson's worry wasn't quite settled at House's typical reaction of dismissing other's reactions to things that ought to be trivial, but stubbornly often weren't. However, Wilson decided to focus on much more pleasant things for the time being. "My place. And bring an overnight bag."

That did the job of erasing the frown from House's face.

-

-

Thirteen arrived to the rest of the team munching on breakfast muffins and take-out coffee. "Courtesy of House, believe it or not." Foreman commented when he saw the question mark that was her face.

"Really?" She said, shedding her spring coat, donning a lab coat and seating herself beside Taub who was happily wiping banana nut crumbs from his mouth. "Aren't you worried they might be laced with hash oil or something?"

Taub paused in his chewing. He stared across the table at Chase, who had declined muffins but was sipping from an extra-large coffee with no cream but loads of sugar. "Do you really think he...?" Taub asked. "I mean, House'll do insane things, lots of insane things actually, but dope up his team?"

Chase looked around the table. He shrugged. "Probably not, but with House you never know."

Thirteen tore small bites from a bran and blue-berry muffin. "Where is House anyway?"

Chase smirked. "Well, I saw him come in this morning with Wilson."

Taub swallowed. "Wilson and House are sleeping together. I heard that rumor the day I started working here. Arriving together means they know everyone knows and they don't care."

"Good for them." Thirteen remarked. As far as she was concerned, if House and Wilson were sharing more than beers, it was no surprise to her. She saw it coming years ago. "Can we talk about the patient?"

Foreman had declined both muffins and coffee. He'd been feeling a little thicker in the middle lately, and was rather depressed that he had just passed the halfway mark between thirty and forty years old. "Miraculously, our patient is stable. And House told us to wait here. No idea why."

Taub sipped his coffee, to wash down the last of his muffin. "Did you hear the latest? House has Aspergers'. Cameron sent me a text me about it."

"She probably sent everybody a text." Foreman nodded. "So?"

"So nothing." Taub said. "I just thought it was interesting."

Thirteen thought back over the three years she had, on and off, worked for House. "Might explain a few things, I guess. Social difficulties, self-isolation, adverse to change, tied to routine, unusual thought processes - sounds like the man I work for."

Foreman decided to cut the conversation about House's personal business short. "Some call it a disorder, or a condition, but all it really is, is a spectrum of personality, and in House's case, it doesn't matter. With or without the Aspergers', it doesn't change anything. House is our boss."

Taub observed. "Aspergers' can be a detriment to organized thinking."

Chase piped in. "House has never been organized. If anything, he's pathologically disorganized. And easily distracted - how many times have we seen him limp out of here with his mind on some unrelated, latest obsession? He still solves his cases."

Thirteen shook her head. "Are you guys going to start looking at him like he's grown a second head? That's how you acted when you found out I had Huntington's - like I was going to collapse into a pile of twitching jelly-limbs at any moment." She stared at her own coffee cup, muttering her last thought. "It really pissed me off."

-

-

Breakfast, case, the team, a second cup of coffee would have to wait. Nothing was more important - or better - than Wilson ramming him up against the wall of his office and playing with his fun bits. House groaned softly, but loudly enough it seemed for Wilson to "shh!" him with his right index finger to his lips, while his left hand was kept busy stroking his favorite part of House with a little lube he had purchased and hidden in the bottom drawer of his desk for just such occasions.

When House finally came, rolling his eyes back into his head and banging the wall with the back of his skull, Wilson slowed his firm regular motions with his fist, and finally let go of House's quickly softening penis. Wilson kissed him once on the lips. "Go work."

House left his office with a tiny wicked grin.

Wilson returned to his desk. The previous night's fun-date had been postponed by an especially bad cramping of House's leg. Other than pizza and a bad science fiction movie, the night had been pretty much a write-off. Plus House had been a little depressed over Cameron's little tattle, which was now spread all over the hospital. Everyone now knew about House's Aspergers', and everyone would have their own (almost always incorrect), notions of what that was, and how it could be affecting House's performance of his job. Many now would also (just as incorrectly), assume that it had probably always affected House in some adverse way. More to feed the gossip-mill. People were afraid of what they didn't understand or recognize. The vision of "normal" most people harbored, no matter how politically correct the world had morphed, was a narrow band of secret prejudice. Wilson sighed. Cameron really was an insufferable, malicious gossip.

At least House had left his office happy.

-

-

Their conversation about House ended when the subject himself arrived, half an hour late. House entered his office and sat down somewhat lighter of heart. His team all sat up just a little straighter, arousing his suspicions. "Are my ears burning?" They had probably been discussing him. Disregarding it for a moment, he opened the brown paper muffin bag with a frown. "I bring in donuts two days in a row, and you leave not even one for me?" He looked at all of them. "Piggies." House settled for confiscating Foreman's left-over luke-warm coffee and downing it himself. "How's the vegan child?"

Forman ignored House's coffee theft. "No change, other than he isn't being fed anything than water and essential electrolytes. No food from the mom or dad."

House stared at his team each in turn. Thirteen was busy staring into her cup, Forman opened and was pursuing the patient's file. Only Taub and Chase were in turn looking at each other, the table, House, the walls, and everyone appeared to some degree guilty. House took a large drink of Foreman's Coffee-mated coffee, set the cup down, threw back his head and screamed at the top of his voice. A single, short, piercing "AH-H-H!!"

People in the adjacent hallways stopped what they were doing and looked, but then went back to their activities, ignoring the crazy doctor called House. The team all jumped like they'd been zapped with a cattle prod, and then stared at him, frozen to their chairs. No one said a word.

House pointed an accusing finger at them all. "I guess you've heard, huh?" He said, leaning back in the chair. "I knew it, because if you didn't know, you would have stared at me and _then_ asked me why I did that. Now you're staring at me not like I'm House, but like I'm House with Aspergers', because that wasn't a House yell, or even a pre-nut-house therapy House yell, that was a House-who-has-Aspergers' yell, and you have no idea what to do with it."

House cupped his paper cup between his hands. "Just for the record, I don't give a damn who knows I have Aspergers', but I tell you what - you keep working as though I don't have some scary new thing going on in my head, and I'll give you a heads-up the next time I feel the urge to do something Asperger-y, just so you can brace yourselves."

Everyone but Foreman had the decency to look suitably abashed. House rubbed his forehead. "I want a new blood panel for everything, including the kitchen sink, the drains, the garburator and the trash can. Then I want him fed one of his parents typical vegan meals, and then another blood panel, again with the appliances - and don't forget to check the filters. There has to be something about this kid's digestion that we're missing."

House abruptly stood and entered his office, closing the door behind him and drawing the blinds. He was in the mood for some Stevie Vaughn and a few minutes of solitude. Time enough to let his irritation at his team's, at Chase and Taub's, uncomfortable reaction to the knowledge of his new Aspergers'-House status, fade a little.

He was no different than he'd been yesterday, last week, last year or ever. But now that everyone knew, he was in for the usual tip-toe-ing around by those lesser mortals called his "peers".

_Peers my ass! _House let the soothing strings of Stevie's bluesy guitar drift across his mind. It served to settle it somewhat.

What was Cuddy going to do about this news she and her entire staff now knew and would gossip over? Nothing legally. You can't discipline someone for having a personality that didn't meet whatever norms society currently choose to designate as normal. Give it a year or three, and those designations would shift and change and he'd be an all new House again. He would become not the House with Aspergers' House, but the House with Aspergers' but - hey - some of our brilliant conclusions were wrong after all - our bad! House had heard all of the bullshit for years. People with Aspergers' were "different" from "typical's". Typical had a seriously underweight scale of what was acceptable. To be typical meant average IQ, average response to various social and language tests, average incidence of OCD-like behaviors, average this and average that.

By that criteria, anyone with an IQ 110 and up had Aspergers'. House thanked god-or-whoever that he was far from typical. If being non-typical meant having a really good brain, or really good instinct, or a really kick-ass memory, or all of those and more, then bring on the non-typical status.

House shook his head to dispel the circle of thought. It wasn't that simple of course.

Then House thought about Wilson. Wilson was by no definition he knew, a typical man. He was smart of course, but neurotic to the point of dysfunctional. Wilson was terrified of being disliked, ashamed of intimacy, self-loathing and, ironically, self-centered but knew how to put on a good show of being selfless. And he was in-love with Gregory House. That, more heavily than all of his other quirks, was the reason Wilson could never be labeled typical.

Then again, Wilson didn't have Aspergers'. Wilson liked socializing, made new and loyal friends with a flat minute of small talk, could entice any woman on the planet into bed (or even his screwed up best friend for that matter), and amongst all that, generally liked to feign that he was one of the happiest guys around. Slap-happy guy on anti-depressants who fretted if his tie wasn't knotted just right - that was the love of Gregory House's life.

House counted himself lucky. Wilson of the cooking classes, and soft brown eyes that made House's heart ache whenever he did anything that really hurt him or, worse, hurt himself. Wilson who put up with him for years and probably couldn't explain that phenomena to anyone, let alone himself. Wilson who loved him so much he'd been sexually faithful and for a change made it look easy. And Wilson of the tender affections (though occasionally so sugary sweet House had felt the urge to spread him on a cracker), and even, in just the right amount, gentle on those rare occasions House really needed it, even when he couldn't or wouldn't admit it to literally save his life.

That was the Wilson who loved him. He, the House of no Aspergers' or the House _with_ Aspergers' was still simply House to Wilson. The Aspergers' part meant as much as his skin color might, or the way he played the piano.

To Wilson, he was like playing cards. You only know the difference if you look close enough, but then the suites don't matter when the game is always Old Maid, just the pairs and the card you're left with. The difference is almost no difference at all.

House sat forward, took up his cane and marched with a hop-skip and a hobble down to his forbidden patient's room where dad and mom sat, listening to Chase explain why they were taking yet more blood from their son's already low reserves.

House ignored the father's glare though, Chase noted, he did skirt the chair where the beefy man was seated and circle around until Chase was between him and the red-faced, angry man. "Stop." House told Chase. "We're not doing the panel."

"_You're_ not doing anything to my son." Dad said with just enough warning in his voice to sound threatening but, since Doctor Cuddy's counter-warning to him about the hospital laying charges for assault, it had no teeth.

House leaned over his patient. "The day your parents brought you in here, what had you eaten?"

The kid was awake but just barely. "Soy-germ cereal..." He began.

House shut him down. "I mean what did you _really_ eat?" House was addressing everyone now. "Don't tell me a normal teenage boy doesn't decide to one day rebel against his parent's new-age food choices and stuff himself with a banana split or at least a liter or two of - ."

"-What does this have do with - " The father said angrily. "My son would never - "

"Right, right." House said. "Good natured nature-boy here has been fornicating with fruit." House, in every way ignoring the father's mutterings of "crazy doctor with the cards", addressed only Chase. "Fructose. We're going to test him for fructose reaction."

For a second Chase worried that House might be on something. "We've already done a scratch test - two scratch tests."

Foreman piped in. "And if for some reason you're again wondering about diabetes, a scratch test isn't going to tell you anything."

House turned an exasperated and impatient face to them both. "I'm talking about fructose allergy you idiots."

A small light of possible understanding and agreement appeared in Foreman's eyes. "Hyper-insulin reaction causes low blood sugar, looks like a diabetes-type reaction but no pancreatic dysfunction, normal insulin levels..."

"With, eventually, abnormal kidney and liver with only normal insulin levels while on his parent's leafy grass and tuber, non-fruity, vitamin packed diet, there were no physical clues to clue us in." House corrected. "We didn't see organ damage because he didn't have enough fructose in his system to accumulate the f-1-phosphate."

Chase entered the fold with - "Wouldn't show up in the blood panels because we had him off food. Would not have showed up while he lived at home because he never ate anything with enough fructose levels to cause the expected reactions. Not until he got to the hospital."

"And we started him on a gastric diet of healthy, glucose and fructose-tainted fluids." Foreman added, feeling like a blind man who'd just had his sight restored.

After hearing this, the kid swallowed and said. "I had a bowl of fruit cocktail."

The parents both assured their son with soothing noises and that "everything was all right".

House nodded. "High concentrations of fructose." House turned to the dad. "Your son is fructose intolerant, different than glucose intolerant due to a failing pancreas. This is a condition where the body can't absorb fructose and because of that phosphorus wastes begin collecting in the kidneys, liver and intestines, causing damage which, if left untreated, permanent damage and death. It's a relatively allergy that, ironically enough, was hiding because he was never allowed to eat anything with enough fruit sugar to trigger it. And one that is not routinely checked for. Luckily the fruit cocktail got him sick enough for you to get him in here, then we got him sicker because your son lied about being faithful to your vegan god. And because his mom tried to help by feeding him a banana."

House asked the kid. "Did you like the fruit?"

"Not really."

House nodded. "Good thing. You're off it for the rest of your life." He turned to Foreman. "Start treatment."

-

-

House celebrated by putting on his Ipod and eating a Reuben with extra sauerkraut and mustard at his desk. It would have been the perfect ending to a perfectly weird day had Cameron not walked through the door and turned it into plain, old crap.

House looked up at her. "Are you here to just stare at the awful Aspergers' man who wrecked your marriage, or do I have to remove my Ipod because you want to talk to me?"

Cameron just waited with that holier-than-thou look she now wore pretty well every time he saw her.

House took off his ear-phones and sat back, abandoning the sandwich. His appetite had disappeared.

"I used to fantasize about you." She said.

House rolled his eyes. "This again..."

"About making you happy, seeing you smile."

Specifically regarding Cameron naked, House could recall a fantasy or two of his own.

"Were any of those about respecting my personal business?"

"They needed to know. We all had a right to know."

House spread his hands. "Your evil work is done - they know." He glanced around, passed her, through the doors to the usual bustling business of a hospital working day. "What's changed? Your hope to disrepute me didn't pan out. Your marriage is still over, you're still off my team..."

Cameron stared at him. Her pupils tiny, distant dots in the universe. "I can't believe I used to love you."

Love? House remembered puppy-eyes for sure. Sweet, dopey, longing looks from across the room when she thought he wasn't looking back. He remembered her indefinable need to rescue him from his loneliness, isolation, addictions, pain - from himself. He remembered her angry, bitter name-calling when he failed to measure up to whatever picture of him she had super-imposed over the genuine article; her inner vision of what he could be, if only he would allow her to get her sticky fingers on him and "help". He clearly recalled her disbelief, and then her lingering resentment, when he had failed to reciprocate her desires. He even recalled her using Chase, a man she had also claimed to love, to try and make him jealous. She had loved him so much that she'd abandoned him at the first big hurdle by dropping a divorce in his lap.

But love? He didn't remember that at all. Interesting how, in trying to hurt him, he now saw her for the shallow, lost little girl she had been, and still was. Maybe sometimes his Aspergers' _had_ made things more difficult for her, and for the team, though he doubted that himself. If so, he could not recall a single incident that, at the time, anyone had put off to anything but House being difficult. Life and the team had gone on, anyway. No one had quit because they thought House was acting any weirder than usual. Pre-Aspergers' or post-Aspergers' House, when they had not known and when they knew, had made no difference in _him_. He had not changed at all, or if he had, it had been for the better. That he recognized how he had changed for the better since Mayfield would make Wilson proud. Not that he was going to admit that of course.

And no one had at any time, _made_ Cameron stay.

Occasionally, despite everything unpleasant that had transpired over the years - his leg, addictions, detox, pain, mental illness, even maybe his Aspergers', events never-the-less fell perfectly ordered and into place. Exact, required, effortless. Suddenly, House felt better again, and he wanted to listen to his music and finish his sandwich.

"I can't believe you believe that."

-

-

"Heard Cameron paid you a visit, and that you cured your patient." Wilson said on their way home. It was nice to drive home together. So often their work hours varied, they almost always arrived separately.

"Yeah. Apparently, she was trying to save the world from me."

"Well, it didn't work. You're still here. Not that I'm complaining." Wilson hoped House sent her off with stinging ears.

"And the kid'll be fine, poor bastard. Confined to boring food for the rest of his life." House suddenly felt very hungry. "I want pizza tonight. With anchovies and shrimp."

"Didn't you just finish a sandwich?" Wilson liked pizza well enough but he also liked to watch his middle. Lately it had been gathering the habit of folding over his belt if he indulged in too many of House's food choices. "How about we do whole-wheat spaghetti and salad? I'll cook."

"Whole wheat? How's that a bargaining tactic? And you _always_ cook."

"I'll load up on the garlic-butter, all right? Then we can spend the evening burping in each others faces." Gross often appealed to House. Besides, if he indulged House's stomach now, there might be a wicked blow-job in it for him during Letterman.

"Deal."

Wilson laughed. "I'm so glad you're not normal, House, and I mean that in a totally Aspergers'-neutral way. You'd probably be boring if you were normal."

"Right. Like you would know normal or anything in the immediate vicinity. And I mean that in a totally neuro-typical-neutral way - wait, I'm wrong. You're not neuro-typical yet you _are_ boring. You must be pseudo-normal."

"What is normal anyway?"

"You driving slower than most people can walk is normal, at least for you. You driving slower than _I _can walk is normal. You driving no differently than a Jewish great-great-grandmother on her way to Temple, and she has to slow down because her bra strap snapped and what is she going to do now?? _That's_ your level of driving-pseudo-normal. Hence - boring, not to mention frustrating. Therefore my poor starving stomach has also become Wilson's-level of slow-normal-frustrating."

"Your stomach is slow?"

"No, my stomach is frustrated to Wilson-type-pseudo-normal-levels - step on it."

Wilson reached out and touched the side of House's face with one tender finger. Just for a second. And, for a change, House didn't flinch at the contact. "_Nothing_ about you is normal, House. I mean that."

"Thanks."

-

-

END

Long, boring AN: Thanks for bearing with me on what proved to be (for me) a difficult, cautious journey into a spectrum of personality which I find intriguing, but know almost nothing about other than what I've read from the medical field, and those reader's who responded with their own experiences. I'm sure I got some or many things wrong, but I tried.

I only know as much about Aspergers as I have read and researched. I have, however, received many emails from those with Aspergers'. All of these emails have been eye-opening and helpful in improving my limited understanding of it. But, as much as I would have liked to apply all of those suggestions to the process of the plot itself, it was too daunting a task.

To accurately render everyone's personal insights and experiences of living with Aspergers' into something moderately coherent became overwhelming.

Like trying to learn everything there is to know about butterflies one day (practically impossible), and then transcribing it all very correctly in National Geographic the next. There was simply too much information. Each reader's individual experiences of "what it is really like" to have Aspergers' was, I found, quite diverse. I could never have applied all of it to the story and still have it be the same story. Plus I could never have satisfied all those who so generously emailed me snippets of their personal journey of having Aspergers' - I could never have done them justice!

Although I would like to say there was not a single hint in any of the letters that, at least to me, conveyed the fact of the writer's Aspergers'/personality if the writer had not actually told me so; that she or he had Aspergers'.

I also did not want the Aspergers' aspect of the story to be the heavy outline. I wanted House's coping with his job as a man who had Aspergers' to be the main framework; a POTW fic'. I can only hope I accomplished this with at least some modicum of accuracy.

And, as always, I delighted in writing the story and want to again thank AdamtheAnt who suggested it to me.

Once EVEN TRADE is done at the end of this week, I will officially be out of ideas for House fic's. I've had some suggestions, good ones, but most of them I have already at some point integrated into a fic', and I hate repeating myself. What I need is something unusual. An idea that hasn't been done, or done very, very few times. If anyone has an idea (something odd-ball, off the wall, weird), send it along. K? Me, I got nothing!


End file.
